


what you gonna do (when there's blood in the water)

by WickedHeadache



Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/F, Hanahaki Disease, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, tina is cluelessly in love with leslie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21744340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WickedHeadache/pseuds/WickedHeadache
Summary: Tina will die, lungs collapsing and filling with blood as a goddamn tree grows in them. It's so stupid. Love is literally going to be the end of her, and she is so angry she could take out the staff and choke somebody.Or -- the Hanahaki Disease AU I wrote to fight insomnia. It didn't work.
Relationships: Leslie Dean/Tina Minoru
Comments: 3
Kudos: 38





	what you gonna do (when there's blood in the water)

It starts on a Tuesday afternoon. 

It is a regular day, nothing special about it whatsoever. Except, of course, _it_. She has lunch with Robert before going back to the office to a quite slow day. She has a few meetings, but nothing she's stressed about. Robert is still busy with other matters, so she goes out at 3pm to pick up the girls from school and take them to her mother's. She takes care of them until she leaves the office.

Her mother invites her for tea when she goes back for them. She likes to do that every day, try to suck out every detail of their life that she hasn't already gotten out of Amy and Nico. It's draining and she attempts to run from it every time, in vain. If something her mother is good at, is at sweet-talking you into doing things you don't want to do. Nonetheless, Tina always gives out as little information as she is able to, lest her mom has more material for her criticism.

“How is Robert?”

“He is fine. Still at the office.”

She hums. Tina tenses at the sound, knowing what it is about to come all too well. “He works so hard. Does he get paid little?”

“No,” she answers curtly, burying her face on her cup of tea.

“Then it's everything okay at home, sweetie?” She knows better than to trust that sickly sweet voice. “You know you shouldn't drive away a husband, the chances of getting another for you would be so far and between.”

She is unfaced by the comment. “Everything is fine. It has nothing to do with me.”

“Are you sure, sweetheart? I told you that job was a bad idea. Men don't like women that work too much outside the household.”

She smiles coldly at her, forcing it to look as real as possible. “Robert is not one of them.”

Tina doesn't mention the staff, and that it's her the one drifting away, too caught on it's power and the fact that it's _hers_ and only _hers._ It’s her accomplishment, not Robert and hers, it's her power. It's her legacy, too. She doesn't mention it's the twenty-first century and women are equal to men. She definitely doesn't mention that she is feeling like killing her and she probably would if she didn't love her.

She takes her girls and goes home, finally. She thinks she might need a glass of wine, or a whole bottle, after just that conversation. She also talks herself out of getting blackout drunk, as she would probably be an alcoholic if she didn't do that on a regular basis.

Amy and Nico turn on the TV as soon as they arrive. She doesn't have the energy to insist too much against it. She sits on the couch next to them, fingers caressing Amy's dark hair mindlessly as she waits for Robert to come home. She feels a tug on her blazer's sleeve and turns her head to Nico. The girl has a hopeful look on her face and Tina just knows she is going to ask her for something.

“Mom?” She says. Tina smiles indulgently at her. “Can I go to Karolina's home after school tomorrow? She invited me.”

Her brows lift. She did not expect that. She wasn't even aware Karolina and Nico spend time together at school. Their kids are only friends on Pride meetings, but she guesses them interacting outside of them was meant to happen sooner or later.

“Did Karolina's mom say she could have you over?”

Nico nods her head rapidly. “Yes.”

She raises a brow. “Are you certain?”

She observed her lowering her head before shaking her head slowly.

“I can't take you to her house if her mom doesn't know. She might be busy. I'll give her a call later to see if she is okay with you going.”

There is no way in hell she will do that. She prefers to maintain the least possible contact with the rest of the Pride members as necessary.

Nico smiles widely. Then she draws her attention back to the screen, becoming completely engrossed with it again. Tina rolls her eyes, standing up to get a glass of water. Halfway through, she stops on her tracks. There a feeling in her chest.

She is taken over by the sudden urge to cough. She lets out a small cough, that comes out stronger than she thought. Covering her mouth with a hand, she senses something small and delicate landing on her palm. She draws back her hand to look at what it is.

There is a cherry blossom on her palm. She stares bewildered at it until she feels a cry behind her back and turns to the two girls fighting over the remote control.

After a month or two, she is completely convinced the flower was just a figment of her imagination. She hasn't even been close to a cherry tree since she was fifteen. Besides, there is no scientific explanation for sudden coughing of cherry blossoms. She might have inhaled it, she thinks, but she shakes her head at it because she had just imagined it.

She still panics when she feels she is about to have a coughing fit. Turns out it's just a cold. Because if she were to see another cherry blossom coming from her throat, it would probably mean she is going crazy. She knows that is what her mom would think. That, or she would recite to her little old lady folk tales that nobody believes in anymore except for her.

She groans at the mere thought.

Amy decides she wants to start karate and is insufferable about it. Robert is just as excited about it. Tina can imagine him going to Amy's first class with a camera and recording every bit of it. She considers that and brightens. That means she can skip it and still watch it later from a comfortable couch at 3am when she has insomnia behind Robert's back.

“Alright,” she tells Amy. “I'll sign you up.”

Robert celebrates by picking Amy up and dancing. Amy's delighted laughter brings a smile to her lips, which dissipates when her phone rings loudly. She picks it up, sighing deeply. There is always a security problem, or a system problem, or a prototype problem, or a another employee tried to hack into Wizard's system problem. And they are always present to ruin every single one of her family moments.

“What is it?” She can't help but snap at whoever is the poor bastard that was forced to make the call.

“We have a problem.”

Except the call isn't from Wizard. The angry expression disappears from her face when she hears Leslie's voice. She never expects her to contact her at this time of the year, or at any moment that isn't close enough to Pride's annual meeting.

“What is it?”

“I need your help. I have reason to believe Gene and Alice are hiding something from us. Will you find out what they are up to?”

She may not be the best at being a wife, or a mother, or a daughter, but that, she can do. The corners of her lips are turned upwards. Leslie can't trust anyone else on Pride with something like that, knows everyone but them are too soft not to protect the others if they uncover anything unforgivable. She likes being who someone chooses willingly, who someone trusts. She's never had enough of it on her life.

“Of course,” she tells her. “I'll call you as soon as I get it.”

“Thank you, Tina.” She hangs up.

She takes a deep breath and goes back to her family. Nico has fallen asleep on the couch. Amy is watching TV while Robert is making dinner on the stove. She walks to him with a tight smile on her lips. She knows she can't tell him about Leslie's call. He already hates being forced to make the sacrifices. Tina has no doubts that if he finds out what Leslie asked her to do, he'll try to talk her out of it.

He'll hate her when that doesn't work and she does what Leslie told her despite his protests.

When she is getting ready for bed that night, she thinks about surprising him. It has been awhile since the last time they had sex. Maybe, if she tries hard enough, he might be able to forgive her for the secrets she hides from him. She doesn't dare to hope for forgiveness for the woman she is becoming.

He rejects her. It stings more than she'll ever let him know. She gets out of bed and closes the bathroom door after she gets in. Staring at herself in the mirror, she barely recognizes herself. She looks so tired. She doesn't think she's ever been as exhausted. Her mind goes back to the staff, and her conversation with Leslie, and feeling drained from energy.

She has another one of her coughing fits. She stares bewildered at the four cherry blossoms that fell into her open palm.

This time it doesn't stop there. By the time the week is over, she has twelve small flowers hidden in a drawer in her office. It's uncommon and far in between enough for no one to notice she's been making a home-made bouquet of wet cherry blossoms.

Somehow, they always come out while she is at the office. Her last meeting is up and she observes the muscular man walk away. Once the door is closed, her gaze drops to the envelope he left for her. Smirking, she opens it and sees the pictures. She thinks it will be prove enough for Leslie. She will send it out to her later. 

She puts the pictures back in the envelope and coughs two cherry blossoms while she's at it. She's made it to fourteen then. She is officially not imagining anything. Tina dials Leslie's number and waits for her to pick up.

“Hello, this is Leslie Dean speaking.”

“I got what you wanted,” she informs her.

“So soon?” She sounds surprised.

“I'll send it to you so you can take your own conclusions.”

“Is it as bad as I thought?”

“Worse,” she says and lets out a small cough. Her eyes widen when she spots the familiar blossom falling over her desk. She picks it up quickly and hides it.

Fifteen.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes. It's just a cold.”

Leslie chuckles. “Let me guess, one of the girls passed it on to you?”

“Exactly,” she lies deliberately. She sends the envelope to Leslie.

Later that night, she is making dinner. Gene and Alice and their screw-up are far away from her mind, and so it's Tina's bizarre situation. Robert has gone to bed early and the girls are chatting, all of them blissfully unaware of Tina's insane world. For a moment, so is Tina. She even frowns when somebody calls her at 7pm. 

“It's done,” Leslie's voice, cold and unwavering, reaches her ears.

“You mean...”

“I handled it.”

Tina doesn't want to know. She coughs more cherry blossoms as Leslie ends the call. She finds out later anyway. Leslie killed them, in cold blood.

After she comes home from the funeral, she empties her pockets from the flowers she's let out during the day. She's never coughed so many blossoms on just one day before.

The water is boiling. The way it steams is so satisfying that she almost regrets turning off the stove. She is aware that her mother is staring, her scrutiny always too present for Tina's taste. She pours on both teacups, thinks the older woman might criticise the tea, too, but she stays silent.

She is relieved. No matter how silly the thing, she is thankful when her mother leaves her off the hook. One should always be thankful for small miracles. After awhile, however, she notices her mother is too quite. She hasn't spoken a word to her in the last 30 minutes. Tina wonders what is her angle this time around.

“Is everything ok with you?” Her mom asks her, and she can't help but blink until the bewilderment disappeared.

“What?”

“You've been different lately. Has anything happened?” For the first time in Tina's entire life, she sounds genuine.

“Not much,” Tina tilts her head. She skips the part about flowers on her throat and murderous cults.

“Mom,” Nico says, approaching her. She knows she'll ask her something. Tina begs for her to think better of it and do it later, when grandma isn't around. “Can Karolina come home tomorrow after school?”

“How about we discuss this at home?”

“Who is Karolina?”

Tina represses a childish moan. “A friend from school,” she replies before Nico.

“And from Mom's meetings.”

The older woman's eyes glim like she's found gold. “What meetings?”

“The meetings she has with her friends.”

“Nico, go play with your sister.”

“But-”

“Later,” her tone is a clear warning. The girl pouts but joins her sister.

“Aren't you gonna tell me about these friends of yours I've never heard about?”

Tina opens her mouth to make up some lie, but instead she has a coughing fit. This time it truly hurts. She covers her mouth with her hands. It's pointless. There are too many cherry blossoms in them for her to even attempt to hide them. She stares down at her hands wide-eyed. The petals have red stains on them. Blood.

She is so horrified she forgets her mother is there. When she comes back to her senses, she looks around to see if the girls had seen it. She sighs when she finds they hadn't. She looks back to her mom. Her face is pale, features stained with worry and recognition. “Oh, honey. Why didn't you tell me?”

“I'm vomiting flowers, what else is there to tell?”

“Who is it?”

“Who is what?”

“You don't know what is happening to you?”

No, she doesn't. She is not sure she wants to know. Her mom tells her anyway. 

Tina will die, lungs collapsing and filling with blood as a goddamned tree grows in them. It's so stupid. It's one of her mother's folk tales and Tina knows she can't believe it. It's just flowers, they can't kill her. She snorts at the thought. She'll deal with them, like she always does.

But the air is taken away from her lungs when her mom mentions that the cherry blossoms, the death, is caused by unrequired love. It's ridiculous, and she believes her, and Tina is so angry. She is going to die, because of love, when she doesn't even care about it. Love is literally going to be the end of her, and she is so angry she could take out the staff and choke somebody.

And the best past is, there is no cure. She laughs bitterly. She is crying in front of her mother, which she hates, but she is going to die, so who cares? 

She leaves the cherry blossoms sprayed all over her mom's dining table before she goes back home with her kids.

Her eyes never leave Nico. She is running around, playing some game with Karolina that she doesn't care about enough to remember its name. Everything smells like death lately. Her days are counted. At any moment her lungs could collapse and she would be left staring lifelessly at the sky, mouth and throat overflowing with her own blood and cherry blossoms.

Nico and Amy will grow up without a mother. That makes her so angry, even more so than the thought of her own death. It isn't their fault. It's her fault, and Robert's, for not reciprocating her love.

Leslie sits down next to her, but she barely senses her until she puts a hand on her shoulder. It makes her jump.

“You seem tense,” Leslie comments.

“It's been a busy week,” she says. The woman hums.

“They are getting bigger each day, aren't they?” Leslie says, and Tina's eyes turn sad. They are and Tina will miss it all. “I just wish they could stay this small forever.”

“Me, too,” she replies absently.

She feels Leslie staring so hard at her that she might burn holes on her skull. “You know that,” she tells her, a bit nervous, “if you ever need my help, with anything, I'm here for you, okay?”

Tina lifts her brows. She turns to Leslie, a small smile on her lips. “That's good to know.”

She doesn't think Leslie is too serious about that proposition, though.

Robert starts picking up their daughters from their grandma's house.

She wishes that were because she was avoiding her and not because she is too unwell to leave the house. (That would have never happened, though, she is not stupid enough to just hand over to her mother every bit of information about her life. Not willingly) She has convinced Robert she has the flu. He bought it, given how much Tina coughs and spends time in the bathroom.

The trip from the kitchen to her bedroom alone leaves her with twenty-five cherry blossoms to throw away. More or less.

Then someone knocks on the front door, and Tina's eyes widen. She looks like shit and vomits flowers every minute like she is the personified spring. She keeps her mouth covered with a piece of toilet paper on her way to the door in hopes it'll hide the flowers long enough for her to kick out whatever idiot is bothering her.

She opens the door and freezes when she sees Leslie standing there with a shy smile. She is holding a Tupperware on her hands. Tina doesn't say a word.

“Hi,” Leslie says.

“Hello.”

“I heard you were sick, and I thought I would drop by and...” she drifts off. She didn't know people actually did that kind of stuff. Visit a friend or co-worker (or whatever she is to Leslie) when they are sick, bring flowers, bring...

“You brought me chicken soup?” She says in disbelief.

“Yes,” Leslie replies, then falters. “Is that okay?”

“Why wouldn't it be?” She responds, taking the Tupperware from her hands. “Thanks.”

“May I come in?” Leslie says, and Tina has no choice but to let her in. “Are you contagious?”

“Not really,” she points to the paper hiding her mouth. “This is just for the-” She coughs. She feels a cherry blossom dropping on the paper. “For the cough.”

“I see.”

“You don't need to be here, you know?” Tina tells her.

“You don't want me here?” Leslie's tone drops. She sounds hurt.

“It's not that. I just want you to know that you are not obligated to come over just because we work together.”

“We are friends,” Leslie states.

Oh, Tina thinks. How could she argue with that?

She manages to hold it together for five minutes before she has to hurry to the bathroom, kneels down and vomits red-stained flowers down the toilet.

“Are you okay?” She fights the urge to snap that no, she isn't okay, she is dying and there is nothing she can do about it. “Do you need anything?”

Tina is starting to feel tears spilling down her cheeks. She needs her to hold her tight and never let go. She needs to scream until the flowers on her lungs go away. She needs to fucking kill Robert for doing this to her. Her throat feels sore and her eyes are puffy, but she thinks she can blame it on the flu.

“A tissue?” She says instead.

“I can do that,” is Leslie's answer, though Tina wants her to do so much more.

“If you are feeling too sick, you don't have to come. We can manage without you.”

“No, you don't,” Tina frowns. “I'm the one with the staff, you need me.”

It's time for Pride's annual meeting. That time of the year everyone tries to forget it exists, and Tina is actually fighting to go. She doesn't understand why is Leslie suddenly babying her. She can take care of herself, she knows her limits, and she knows she'll die any time soon so she is going to do whatever she wants.

She goes. She has a tissue gripped tightly on her left hand and she keeps it close to her mouth. Leslie looks at her like she thinks this is a bad idea, but she doesn't care. She is not going to ruin the meeting, no matter how little trust Leslie has on her these days.

She vomits three cherry blossoms into her tissue.

They wait until Leslie arrives with this year's kid. She coughs a bit more. This one (she doesn't remember his name) is an easy one. He willingly walks to the box, Leslie on his side, takes off his robe and gets in it. Just as the box stops glowing, Tina can't hold the flowers any longer. Her throat hurts as she vomits cherry blossoms all over the floor, blood staining each one of them. 

She attempts to stand up, but she falls on her knees back to the ground, letting out three more sad blossoms. She looks up, a hand pressed to her chest as she catches her breath. Pride is staring in shock at the red and pink decorating the floor. She finds Leslie's eyes, wide and oh so worried. She's put a hand over her mouth. 

“Tina?” A small voice catches her attention. Her husband. She sets her eyes on his. They are filled with fear. So much fear in them. It's almost like-

“You know,” she whispers.

“No...” He shakes his head, not to deny it, but to fool himself into believing he can deny what he is seeing. He covers his open mouth with both hands. “It can't be.”

“It can.”

Everybody else just keeps their eyes on the cherry blossoms, wondering what is what it has just occurred.

“I...” Leslie speaks up. Her hands are shaking, Tina notes. “I'm gonna check on _him_.” She averts anyone, practically running away from there.

Tina's lips turn downwards. She is dying. It's still not enough for Leslie to stay. She feels a small flower on the back of the throat. She coughs it all the way out and it lands on her hand. She crunches it, not caring about who is watching.

She stands up, picking up the staff. “We have an early day tomorrow,” she excuses and leaves with Robert. That is a lie. She's still staying at home, cultivating her own inner garden, and Robert doesn't have to go to the office till 10am.

On their way home, neither says a word to the other. She senses the turmoil in his head, but she figures he must still be making sense of it all. The girls are asleep. They sit down and she waits.

However, she doesn't expect him to say: “Who made you sick?”

He thinks- She might be about to laugh out loud, because this whole situation is just ridiculous at this point. He thinks she is in love with someone else. He might even believe she cheated on him. And the worst part, she muses, is that he doesn't care about it, otherwise he would've just asked her first. He cares about her being sick.

“You,” she says bluntly.

Robert frowns like he's misheard her. “That... can't be possible. We are married, Tina. How is that unrequired love.”

“Well, then who else could it be?” She stands up, and starts pacing. “There is nobody else, and I think I'd known if I was madly in love with someone. I thought about it, and there's only you.”

“You are not madly in love with me,” he tells her, very seriously. 

“How do you know?”

“I'm not a moron, I can tell. There must be someone else. Maybe you are just not aware of it.”

“So I'm the moron?” She lifts an unimpressed brow.

She resists the urge to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. Doesn't he care? His wife might be in love with somebody else and he just comments on it like he's talking about the weather. 

“The most important thing here is for you not to die,” he says. She wonders if he is able to read her mind.

Leslie brings Karolina to her home for a playdate with Nico. Once she found out the truth, it seemed like she decided to make Tina's life easier for what she had left of it. Tina appreciates it. She can barely leave the house without making cherry blossoms rain down the street.

Tina hates for Leslie to see like this, weak and possibly decrepit. Leslie thinks she doesn't notice how she keeps eyeing her every time she coughs like she is afraid that would be the last time she does. She prefers to settle on watching the girls.

She ignores the mountain of flowers that accumulated during the hour and half Leslie's been here, though she can tell Leslie can't keep her eyes away from it.

“What is it, Leslie?”

“Nothing,” she tells her.

“I know it's a weird disease but just act normal around me. It's tiring me out,” she rubs her temples. “Please.”

“How long?” Leslie's voice sounds more confident than a second ago.

Tina furrows her brows. “How long what?” 

“How long have you been sick?”

“A few months.”

Leslie pales, eyes fixated on the flowers again. “Why haven't you gotten rid of them?” Leslie asks her, desperation transforming her features.

“I can't,” she tilts her head in confusion.

“Why?”

“There is no way.”

“You can surgically remove them, and remove the feelings with them. Why did you let them grow so much?”

“You are telling me... there's a cure?”

“Yes! You can make it all go away. Please,” Leslie begs, voice thick with something, and Tina notices it's with unshed tears. “You can't die.”

Tina just stares at the floor, eyes wide. She is feeling the tears on them, ready to spill. It all suddenly makes so much sense. She wants it to be easy, to just make it go away and stay with her family forever. But it's not as easy as it was a month ago. Heck, it's more complicated than it was just a couple minutes ago, when she was struck with realization and would have given everything to stay alive.

“I can't do that,” she says slowly, looking back at Leslie. The blonde woman is on the verge of tears, lips trembling.

“Why?” She asks with a shaky, small voice. “Whoever he is, Tina, he is not worth your life.”

“I thought that too,” she says, mostly to herself. “But now I'm beginning to realize what I'm going to lose if take them away.”

“Tina...” Leslie shoots her a begging look before she closes her eyes. “Please. Pride needs you. Your family needs you,” Tina's eyes darken at the mention of her family before she hears Leslie's next words. “I need you.”

They take her breath away.

“Why won't just cure yourself?” Leslie's tone turns sharp, more demanding.

It sets off a coughing fit on Tina, who spits multiple cherry blossoms over the table before she looks back at Leslie. She has that worried look on her face again.

“Maybe I'm just not willing to forget.”

She sees Leslie's frustration, like she can't understand who could be important enough to give her life for. Until that same afternoon, Tina wouldn't have understood it either. Then she realized she is madly in love with Leslie Dean and that the way she feels when she is around Leslie isn't something she'll ever want to give up.

There is so much yelling and noise, and the picture keeps moving. It makes her roll her eyes. Robert isn't good at filming. That isn't important, though. What matters is the little Amy on the screen, trying imitate exactly the kick her Sensei had shown her. She almost falls on her ass, and she lets out a chuckle at it.

Right now, as she watches a blurry picture on the screen that moves out of shot constantly, she wishes she had been there to see it in person. She wishes she wouldn't have missed so many moments and to still be there as new ones are made.

She can't sleep. There is a bowl on the coffee table that they use to put popcorn. She can't eat popcorn, her throat is sore and probably bleeding out on the inside, so she uses it instead to drops her cherry blossoms in it. She has always had problems concealing sleep, but now she doesn't sleep altogether since every time she closes her eyes the urge to cough her lungs out keeps her conscious.

“Did you have fun?” Robert asks Amy on the film. The girl beams at him nodding. “Let's go home.” 

Tina considers watching Nico's baby films, but thinks better of it. She is depressed enough for one night.

She furrows her brows when her phone buzzes, as it is 4 in the morning and no sane person would dare to call anyone at this time. It's Leslie. It astounds her Leslie is awake at 4am more than it does that she is calling her.

“It's 4 in the morning,” she picks up her phone.

“And yet, you are up.”

“I can't sleep,” she leaves it at that. Leslie's silence tells her she knows what she is talking about. “What do you want, Leslie?” She sighs, tired.

“I just-” Leslie swallows whatever deep confession she had to say. “I needed to speak with you.”

Tina doesn't ask her why so late. She doesn't care. She waits for Leslie to elaborate until she gets tired of the silence. “Leslie, is everything okay?”

Because people don't call at 4am to "speak" and then proceed to say nothing. She hears Leslie's wet laugh. Her eyes pop open when it turns into a sob. 

“Leslie?”

“I keep thinking,” Leslie takes a deep breath and suddenly sobers up, “that if I close my eyes and rest, when I wake up you might be gone. So I don't.”

Tina shuts her mouth. Of all the things, Leslie could have said, that was completely unexpected. Oh, how she would love to dare to hope, to confess her love for her, maybe avoid dying, but somehow it being useless feels more painful than her current fate. Every time she looks at Leslie, there is butterflies in her stomach and an incessant thumping on her chest —though now that she thinks about it, it's probably just the flowers.

Nonetheless, Leslie sees her as an ally and reluctant friend. She wonders if she feels guilty about Tina dying, for some reason she'll never get. It is half her fault, after all, though unbeknownst to her.

“I wanted to hear your voice one more time, just in case,” Leslie whimpers slightly.

“Don't do that,” she can't help but seethe. “Don't talk to me like you are saying goodbye. I'm not dead, yet.”

“You won't save yourself.”

Tina closes her eyes, takes a deep breath. “Go to sleep, Leslie. There is no need for two of us to feel like shit.”

She hears the beginning of a sob just as she hangs up. She presses her phone against her chest, then bends over a coughs painfully, tears filling her eyes. The cherry blossoms are all over the floor, but her sight is too blurry for her to distinguish each of them. It seems like there are thousands of them.

Tina keeps coughing. She feels like she drowning and no matter how hard she tries to swim back to the surface and get some damn air, she is being pulled down to the bottom of the ocean. The smell of her own blood mixed with the flowers makes her nauseous. She can't breathe, and she thinks she can't die now, not yet. It's too soon. But the blossoms don't stop emerging.

The world turns black. She hits her head with the coffee table as she falls.

Something cold and so _nice_ brushes her forehead and both cheeks. She hums in her feverish state, half-asleep, half-dead. She is not even sure what she is anymore. She almost wishes she was dead, and that this is heaven and her suffering is over. She knows she is alive. Her back hurts, but more does her throat, and her chest isn't helping the matters.

It's only a matter of time, she thinks, before she dies. If she thought spitting a couple of flowers every few minutes or so, she was definitely not ready to vomit the whole tree at once, what felt like half a litter of blood going down with it. She is not ready to find out how often that is going to happen, or if she even has enough time to repeat it.

There is a soft voice humming what seems like a sweet lullaby to her ear.

She becomes thoroughly annoyed by it. Her mouth is as dry as desert and she feels like drinking an entire river. Her eyelids are heavy, like they are glued together and trying to separate them would only hurt. It does hurt, but her whole body does too so she doesn't give a damn about the blinding white light that makes her want to crawl beneath the sheets and die.

“You are awake,” a woman's voice says. Tina blinks at her, not making out her figure quite yet. “Good. We thought you were dead.”

It's her mother, she notes.

“I certainly feel like it.”

“You scared the shit outta me.”

Tina widen her eyes as much as somebody that would still fall back asleep can. “You should probably start getting used to it.”

“A mother never gets used to their child dying,” she swallows, hands shaking. As Tina's sight accommodated to the light, she realizes she is in a hospital room. She thinks about Amy and Nico and finds she fully understands what her mother says. She can't even begin to imagine what it would be like, to lose them.

Her attention is drawn away from her mom when Leslie knocks on the open door, sticking her head in. It's so adorable that it brings a smile to her face. She steps in slowly. “Hello.”

“Come on in,” she tells her.

“I saw Robert going to buy Nico and Amy something to eat,” Leslie informs her. “I'm sure he'll be back at any moment.”

Tina just looks at her. Really looks at her. Leslie is fully dressed in white, hair straightened, which she is not as usually as Tina would like it do be. She is gorgeous, twisting her hands before she decides to just put them both over her stomach and takes three steps forward. Tina thinks she must look like shit in comparison, but doesn't give too much thought to it.

She needs to be certain if she is going to do what she is considering to do. She needs to look at Leslie and think _she trusts me, she needs me, she is on my side, she understands_ one last time before it all goes away and Leslie is just another person in a robe in a basement as a teen dies on a box once a year. The only time of the year she'll see her, and Tina will be fine with it, think that the less she sees Pride the better.

Tina is just not cut out for dying. 

She will lose the only relationship in her life that feels hers and only hers, that doesn't judge her, that makes her heart go wild. She hates it. She'll get used to it.

If the idea of losing a child feels so devastating, she thinks losing a mother must be at least half as terrible.

“Thanks for coming,” she tells Leslie. “It means a lot.”

“It was the least I could do,” Leslie says, looking down. “I'm sorry about-”

“All forgotten,” she cuts her off, shoot her a tight smile. She had actually forgotten about Leslie's call, but she also doesn't want her mom to find out about it and remember it forever.

Leslie leaves five minutes later. Tina turns to her mother, who is looking at her with a lifted eyebrow. She is aware the woman has observed every word, every movement she's made for the past ten minutes. It doesn't surprise her in the least that she has discovered something about Tina.

“It's her,” she nods to the door. “She is making you sick, doesn't she?”

“It doesn't matter.”

“It does. You could tell her, honey, get better.”

“It doesn't matter,” she insists. “I'm getting rid of the flowers. I'm gonna cut them off.”

“You can do that?” Her mom asks. She nods. “And you haven't done it yet?”

“If I get the surgery, my feelings will go away.”

“Don't you want that?” She frowns, like she is not sure who Tina is anymore. Tina would love to see that look on her face under different circumstances.

She bites the inside of her cheeks. “I don't know.”

For the first time after months staying in home, Tina goes to the office. She doesn't feel something emerging from the back of her throat, or the unbearable urge to cough. The only reminder she has of ever being sick is a scar in her chest and a bit of a sore throat that will pass eventually.

“Welcome back, Tina,” some of her employees say. The ones that are brave enough, and she still spots how they can barely look her in the eyes.

She sits behind her desk. She is back at her natural habitat. Tina has missed this.

Robert looks at her like he is not sure who is she anymore. Tina thinks he is expecting her to talk to her about her feelings or any other of the things she'll only say aloud at gunpoint. She wants to focus on him, on their family, but she feels him pulling away from her. 

So much for only being worried about her health.

It's not like she feels the same way about Leslie. She barely even remembers how it was like, to be in love. The only doesn't feel empty when she looks at her daughters. Tina also doesn't pay attention at the void in her heart at all. Feeling the way she used to, it was a waste of time, it distracted her of what it's important. Now she can keep working on the staff fully, and is beginning to use the same technology on Wizard.

When Leslie calls her to meet for lunch, she always has an excuse ready. When Nico asks her if she can go to Karolina's, she makes Robert take her there. It's nothing personal. Leslie is Pride, and Tina only needs to meet them once a year. There is no need to bond.

After awhile, Tina forgets she's ever had cherry blossoms in her lungs. Forgets she cared to much about a woman that her own body turned against itself. Forgets that love almost got her killed. No one addresses it either. It isn't like they care about her. It's like it never happened.

Tina is okay with it. She is ready to move on with her life and to pretend she has never been in love with Leslie Dean. She is alive, after all. What else could she ask for?


End file.
